The first pre-ordered iPhone 4s are shipping, ahead of the launch on Thursday which will see O2 holding back stock for customers while Best Buy pitches pre-sales to the queue.
The first devices are being shipped to those who managed to pre-order the iPhone 4, to be in their sweaty palms by Thursday's launch. Best Buy's plans …

COMMENTS

Is it me?

It seems this whole thing looking more and more like a circus. Let me guess the slogan for next time round, "iPhone5, this changes everything, again and again" only to be followed with "iPhone6, changing everything, ad nauseum" and "iPhone7, more of the same not staying the same". Yes I understand you've got a lot of stuff like an extra camera, sortof multitasking and a flat backside, like most everybody else. Seriously, they're going to need a new marketing guy and soon. Ok, I'm done, the fannies can down vote now.

The utter, howling stupidity of western consumers...

continues to astound me. I know it shouldn't, but it does. It's phone for f**ks sake, nothing more, nothing less. Anyone making this much effort to lay hands on a gadget that will be obsolete in 18 months should be sterilized and disenfranchised for the protection of our species and body politic.

Collective effort

You'll find that individually, not that many are making much of an effort to get it. Me, by myself, visiting a website to try and purchase one does not make me crazy. Collectively, it looks like a mad rush, but that's hardly my fault. If the website is slow-running, or generates an error, I'll probably try again. It would be stranger if I gave up at that point, and rather defeatist..

dross

Whenever a new widely-publicised event happens the media shoud hand out "opinion codes" to people who use cliched, regurgitated opinions as social accessory. That way you can just post "004" and we can all go "ah - some twat positioning himself as superior and unaffected by group behaviours to service his tragically absent self esteem", without having to read the shite YET AGAIN.

Just a phone?

It's a smart phone, so it's more than just a phone. It's a phone, camera, PDA, personal music player, and web browser. Other smart phones offer the same, but still, the iPhone 4 is more than just a phone.

@AC re: howling

Is it the fact it's a phone, or that people are excited which bothers you?

Are you telling me you've never been excited about a purchase you've made, about a product you hear is going to be released? If you haven't, I'm sad because being excited about a product (no matter what that product is) is one of the little joys in life.

The self-righteous tedium of Register posters...

" It's phone for f**ks sake, nothing more, nothing less"

What a load of sanctimonious bull. I don't care if all you use your phone for is making calls, but find me a hand-held gaming platform as good as the iPhone. Thousands of titles, often high-quality, available for free or next-to-nothing. Good luck with that on Android or Symbian.

As much as I want Android to catch iPhone, and as much as I think WebOS is the best smartphone OS in the world, I will buy an iPhone 4 for what 3rd party developers do with it, not for your sweeping cliche of another Apple fanboy kissing Jobs's arse.

Say what you want

One would think Apple had a clue . . .

. . . before they set a launch date. You would think by now, Apple would know how much stock that they will need for their roll outs. Granted they want to create a frenzy, but I think it would make more sense to have enough to feed the frenzy and keep everyone happy. It just make me think they are fools not to have enough stock. Here Steve is not smart nor cute. What other company than Apple would pull a stunt like this?

@FarmerBob

You don't get capitalism and profit maximising corporations do you? I don't intend that to sound rude, but do you know how much investment is required to build x million products, and then to store them in some warehouse? I think what they do is try and hit a happy medium where they're not slated totally for having *far* too many, but not have to spend too much to warehouse the ones they're stockpiling. Also, how many is enough? How many do you produce for launch? What if they produced x million and only .5x million sold? What a flop, and people internally would lose their jobs.